Changes to Boards.ie Ltd. company structure

jack presley

Loughc wrote: »

Why?

With the Journal involved, it'll probably be cut and pasted into some other message board.

Cabaal

jack presley wrote: »

With the Journal involved, it'll probably be cut and pasted into some other message board.

At least when thejournal.ie has run a story off of a boards.ie thread they've referenced boards.ie.
one example http://www.thejournal.ie/xtra-vision-xbox-1191845-Nov2013/

Over the years numerous local and national papers in Ireland have run stories off of content on boards.ie and never ever referenced where it was sourced, for a time in Kilkenny the Kilkenny People ran several. The sun, Daily Fail etc all did it as well.

Is sourcing news from boards.ie that bad? Very large media company's already do it from twitter and thats a smaller amount of characters

begbysback

Sounds like a tax avoidance strategy to me

Yggr of Asgard

Giving the dominant market position of boards. Ie does this takeover require some sort of approval by for example the CPCC?

Yggr of Asgard

I am looking forward to loads of copy and paste onto journal.ie from excellent contributions here on boards.

I am not so much looking forward to more intrusive ads, journal on mobile devices already has large ads topped by floating ads.

Plus I wonder if the "journalists" from journal will now also contribute here in their unique style with comments off once the topic becomes too hot.

Than again maybe the comment section on journal will take boards login info or even redirect to a thread here. Integration of discussion.

Cabaal

Yggr of Asgard wrote: »

Than again maybe the comment section on journal will take boards login info or even redirect to a thread here. Integration of discussion.

Doubt it would happen, but if that happened it might not be that bad.
The standard of discussions on boards.ie is above the standard in thejournal.ie comments section

smokingman

Best of luck guys. I've been through a good few mergers/takeovers and there's always a fear in every employee that things might change for the worse (sometimes unfounded, sometimes true) but I'm rooting for all of you; you've been the Irish place to go for discussion for many years now and aside from trying a bit harder to keep the re-reg trolls out when Ireland is going through a serious societal change discussion, I wouldn't change anything else.

Beasty

Yggr of Asgard wrote: »

Giving the dominant market position of boards. Ie does this takeover require some sort of approval by for example the CPCC?

If they are already part of the same legal group (which is my understanding) nothing changes from a "market dominance" and relevant regulatory perspective

Inviere

Best of luck with it, I'm sure at the end of the day users will notice very little, if any, change on their end. The only thing I'm hopeful of is that there'll now be enough fundage to completely scrap the "Responsive" redesign...it's a complete shocker of a thing, one which never should have seen the light of day.

Boards.ie: Sean

Deub wrote: »

I thought Boards would merge with a similar site in the UK. Something like:

- you could choose to go to the general discussions (UK and IE) or if you wanted to get specific information/discussions you would go the UK or IE area.

The benefits for advertisers would have been the ability to advertise for UK only, IE only or both. It gives access to more advertising companies and for users a bigger choice of discussions.

I know where you're coming from but the majority of our revenue doesn't come from advertisers directly but from media buying agencies. Advertisers go to these agencies with campaigns they want to run and the agencies then work out how to divide up the budget allocated to that campaign. So we deal a lot with these agencies, persuading them that Boards is a great place to advertise on.

All these agencies have both Ireland and UK offices, so while the advertiser may be running a campaign in both countries, the agencies in Ireland will only be booking ads in Ireland and the same for the UK ones.

In this scenario, we have a much more competitive and compelling story for the Irish agencies when we have a large audience reach in Ireland as opposed to having an audience spanning Ireland and the UK.

Boards.ie: Sean

muffler wrote: »

So is this a merger or a takeover?

muffler wrote: »

My limited knowledge of business would have me believe that there is a difference between a merger and a takeover so Im a little confused as to why the CEO has described this activity as a merger given the fact that he has also said that all assets, liabilities and staff will be acquired by Journal Media Ltd. 2 companies merging into one would or should result in the formation of a new company.....BoJo Ltd would be a good name for it :P

Technically what is happening is a merger by acquisition. This is a new merger process introduced in the Companies Act 2014. So yes, it is a merger and yes the assets and liabilities will be acquired by Journal Media Ltd. All of this is covered in the Act.

I think the confusion is that this type of process is relatively new and many people are not familiar with the new provisions regarding mergers in the 2014 Act.

Hope this helps.

Boards.ie: Sean

Yggr of Asgard wrote: »

I am not so much looking forward to more intrusive ads, journal on mobile devices already has large ads topped by floating ads.

I can only re-quote what I said in my original series of posts in this thread ...

Boards.ie: Sean wrote: »

Will there be more ads on the site as a result of the integration?

No, there will be no additional ads. However, after the integration with Journal Media we will be able to more effectively sell the ads that we already have.

DeVore

Hey all...

I'm on the road today in the UK today but will hop in and out here when I can!

This is very much a nothing burger as they say in the US. The same people who own the vast majority of The Journal have owned the vast majority of Boards since about 2011.

In sales terms there is a benefit and an economy of scale to having the same sales person sell both Journal and Boards ads. Its easier for the buyer too.

There is no desire to alter the site or how it functions.

Rememeber that without our admins and mods and users ... we're f**ked.
Thats your ultimate guaruntee. Plus we've been here for 18 years. In all those years we've made lots of promises to you and kept all of them (imho). When we sold shares to Daft etc there was much consternation but nothing changed. Weve never sold your email addresses, not once, nor ever sold your private data or invaded your privacy despite almost every other site in the industry doing that.

Trust us now, this isnt something nefarious, its corporate restructuring by the people who already own the majority of the shares in the site in order to sell ads more efficiently.

The One Doctor

Boards.ie: Sean wrote: »

But in Boards, we (i.e. the company and its staff) don't generate our own content, the users of the site do. Therefore we have no control over the content that is created (other than removing abusive, spam, trolling content etc. that breaches the Terms of Use of the site) and neither wiull The Journal. It is up to Boards users to decide what they want to talk about and how they want to talk about it. I can't see how we or The Journal can, in any meaningful way, influence that.

That's fairly easy. Contact a number of respected boardsies through a third party, give them a list of controversial topics and ask them to choose two. Then suggest that they start a thought provoking thread on a certain day in return for a small consideration (voucher etc) if the thread views reach a certain figure.

That's what I would do.

nuac

Best of luck to the new platform(s) and all who sail on it(them)

Boards.ie: Sean

The One Doctor wrote: »

That's fairly easy. Contact a number of respected boardsies through a third party, give them a list of controversial topics and ask them to choose two. Then suggest that they start a thought provoking thread on a certain day in return for a small consideration (voucher etc) if the thread views reach a certain figure.

That's what I would do.

I would point out that:

1. Anyone could do that now (it wouldn't be hard to identify some respected Boardsies with a cursory search through the site) even without the integration with Journal Media
2. As it hasn't happened to date I don't think there is any reason (and there's absolutely no indication or evidence) to think it suddenly will after the integration is completed
3. Even if there was a reason to think it will (which there isn't) I am 100% confident that the Boards team (all of whom are included in the move to Journal Media) wouldn't stand over it
4. Even if the Boards team would stand over it (which they wouldn't) I think that the community would quickly smell a rat and call us out on it

Yggr of Asgard

While I certainly trust the boards crew more the corporate drones over at journal sooner or later their corporate culture will be adopted in one way or another.

Or boards staff will find that being in a office with copy and paste drone masquerading as journalists is more sole crushing than expected and leave.

We will have to see if boards continues to be a place for all where real people can have a conversation or if it will became the left wing kindergarten that the journal comment section is.

McCrack

Boards.ie: Sean wrote: »

I hear you but I think there is one fundamental difference between Boards and The Journal and the examples you give above, and it's this ..

Other media companies create and publish their own content which is subject to editorial oversight. Media owners may have the potential to influence editorial policy and therefore exert some degree of control over the content (although I must stress that in my view this is absolutely not the case for The Journal).

But in Boards, we (i.e. the company and its staff) don't generate our own content, the users of the site do. Therefore we have no control over the content that is created (other than removing abusive, spam, trolling content etc. that breaches the Terms of Use of the site) and neither will The Journal. It is up to Boards users to decide what they want to talk about and how they want to talk about it. I can't see how we or The Journal can, in any meaningful way, influence that.

And just in case anyone thinks that we may be able to influence things by promoting content we like and suppressing content we don't, the whole site is monitored and policed by our mods and admins, all of whom are volunteers selected from the Boards community and all of whom a) won't let us get away with trying to exert any undue influence on the site, and b) who are not shy about robustly challenging us back if they think we are in any way overstepping the mark

Im not quite convinced about that

Im around Boards many years now and I have a sense certain threads are started by Boards employees. I pointed it out before in AH and I got a lot of support in agreement.

My hunch anyway.

In any event I wish the company continued success.

Beasty

McCrack wrote: »

Im not quite convinced about that

Im around Boards many years now and I have a sense certain threads are started by Boards employees. I pointed it out before in AH and I got a lot of support in agreement.

My hunch anyway.

In any event I wish the company continued success.

Rather than throw out unsubstantiated allegations like that could you perhaps provide even a single example to support your claim/hunch?

McCrack

Beasty wrote: »

Rather than throw out unsubstantiated allegations like that could you perhaps provide even a single example to support your claim/hunch?

As I said its a hunch, a feeling based on intuition.

I cant put it any further

Beasty

McCrack wrote: »

As I said its a hunch, a feeling based on intuition.

I cant put it any further

Don't throw such allegations around then.

Thanks

McCrack

Beasty wrote: »

Don't throw such allegations around then.

Thanks

I haven't gone as far as allege anything. An allegation is a claim or assertion. I have said neither.

Ive simply said I get a feeling from time to time with certain threads started and perhaps certain posters posting that they are Boards employees.

Technocentral

Pity, The Journal like After Hours here is dominated by the far right.

Pa8301

And when I get that feeling I want sexual healing.

slavetothegrind

Hope all boards employees survive the merger and i sincerely hope it keeps boards as is.

It's an almost daily visit for me and i nearly always learn something.

OK i always learn something......

sexmag

Beasty wrote: »

Don't throw such allegations around then.

Thanks

Someone getting touchy,it's fair to say they feel something, they haven't said this or that.

Is there anything illegal about boards employees starting threads? I doubt it to be honest

But I would echo what mcCrack says,ive been here 10 years and some threads seem or feel like they are started to stir the pot and get comments going

However one issue I have is the blatant shutting down of threads or comments by mods that don't fit their own personal adjectives.

Are mods trained on actual moderation of public boards sights and given instructions on how to defuse situations while maintaining things on a day to day bases or picked based on how the acted in a thread?

I'll be the first to admit it's a thankless job being a mod and why anyone would want to do something like that without being paid is beyond me but at the same time we still expect a mod to referee as it is a thread to keep everything in line and be unbiased.....that has fallen far short over the last few months

sexmag

Technocentral wrote: »

Pity, The Journal like After Hours here is dominated by the far right.

What?

I've never been on a site that's more accommodating of cis,lgbt,gender neutral fluid,vegan friendly Hilary Clinton loving people as boards. The right don't get a look in,I'm surprised the tommy Robinson thread has gone on as long as it has

Technocentral

sexmag wrote: »

Technocentral wrote: »

Pity, The Journal like After Hours here is dominated by the far right.

What?

I've never been on a site that's more accommodating of cis,lgbt,gender neutral fluid,vegan friendly Hilary Clinton loving people as boards. The right don't get a look in,I'm surprised the tommy Robinson thread has gone on as long as it has

I didn't say boards overall I said AH, The Journal is a horrible construct, low brow and full of far right commentary.

jamesbondings

Just wondering if the journal/boards plan on monetising the anonymised data the lies within boards..... Its a gold mine..... But will leave me shutting down my account for good.

Anything to keep boards afloat is a good thing but the moment things become monetised one should expect an exodus and a "competitor" waiting in the wings.

DeVore

McCrack wrote: »

As I said its a hunch, a feeling based on intuition.

I cant put it any further

We get like 400 or so threads a day... what possible impact could we have on that?!

Not to mention that the mods would spot it using our anti troll tools...

Sorry, no... we've never done that.